Marine insurance

The question of proximate cause of a loss was one of fact, to be decided on common sense principles. All or virtually all goods were susceptible to loss or damage from the fortuities of the weather on a voyage; that did not mean that such loss or damage arose from the nature of the goods; it arose from the fact that the goods had encountered one of the perils of the seas. It was a matter of “common sense” judgment whether initial unfitness or the intervention of a subsequent peril or both was or were the proximate causes.

Although the meaning of inherent vice would be the same in principle under all marine policies, its application in any particular case had to depend upon the nature and characteristics of the goods being insured and of the insured venture